questions about evolution

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questions about evolution
OP - October 11, 2009, 01:46 PM

forgive me for my ignorance in human evolution. The thing is I just would like to know even though we are from the same ancestor, why our distant relatives don't evolve as much as we do??
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Re: questions about evolution
Reply #1 - October 11, 2009, 02:53 PM

Evolution does not mean going from bacteria to human where "bacteria" would be the "least evolved" being and "human" would be the "most evolved" being.

Evolution means adaptation to the environment. Every species evolves to be the way it is because it can make a living that way. Our chimpanzee brethren evolved to be chimpanzees instead of humans because you can make a living as a chimpanzee (tree-living) in a forrest whereas our direct human ancestors could make a living in a more steppe-like environment (with less trees). That's probably the reason why they developed towards bipedalism.

Let's look at an example in human cultural evolution:

This (the dandy horse) is a common ancestor of today's bicycles and motorbikes.

This is how an early motorbike looked like:

This is how an early bicycle looked like:

This is how today's motorcycles and bicycles look like:

Now, today's motorbikes and bicycles are very different from each other but they are also very different from their past forms. You might here also ask: If bicycles have evolved into motorcycles that are faster and more powerful than bicycles, why are there still bicycles? The answer here is the same: Bicycles are still useful for use cases that motorbikes cannot be used for. There are still bicycles because there are still situations where they are the best vehicle to use for.

Also: While today's bicycles look more similar to bicycles 100 years ago than today's motorcycles do, you should not think, they have not been improved a lot over time. Today's bicycles have gearing, use lightweight materials, don't rust so easily and are improved in numerous other details to best serve the tasks bicycles are used for.

In the same way, today's chimpanzees might look more similar to our common ancestor than today's humans do, but they too have evolved a lot since that time and evolved so that they are more adapted to their way of living. For example, chimpanzees have greatly improved the Knuckle-walking technology over how our common ancestor did it.

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Re: questions about evolution
Reply #2 - October 11, 2009, 06:01 PM

Good explanation.

Li: what other questions do you have on evolution?

Our closest ancestors were Neanderthals. We humans killed them off due to natural resource limitation (space and food). That left only more distance relatives to be our closest.

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Re: questions about evolution
Reply #3 - October 11, 2009, 07:07 PM

Erm....I don't think Neanderthals were our ancestors, they were like our half brothers. We outcompeted them, like the red squirrels and the grey squirrels.

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Re: questions about evolution
Reply #4 - October 11, 2009, 08:55 PM

Quote from: Cheetah on October 11, 2009, 07:07 PM
Erm....I don't think Neanderthals were our ancestors, they were like our half brothers. We outcompeted them, like the red squirrels and the grey squirrels.

Knowing human history & nature, I doubt that. We probably killed them.

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Re: questions about evolution
Reply #5 - October 12, 2009, 11:44 AM

Quote from: Cheetah on October 11, 2009, 07:07 PM
Erm....I don't think Neanderthals were our ancestors, they were like our half brothers. We outcompeted them, like the red squirrels and the grey squirrels.

Sorry, yes you're right. What I meant was that our nearest cousins were Neanderthals and once they were extinct then the next closest cousin are less similar to us.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3a/Humanevolutionchart.png/535px-Humanevolutionchart.png

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Re: questions about evolution
Reply #6 - October 12, 2009, 01:40 PM

Fascinating chart HO

It really highlights how quickly we've spread, compared to anything else I've seen or read.

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Re: questions about evolution
Reply #7 - October 12, 2009, 01:56 PM

There are theories that bottle-neck occurred due to a super-volcano blocking sunlight (& therefore food). Then as we've spread in such a short time difference are minute between humans across the planet (compared to differences between species).

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Re: questions about evolution
Reply #8 - October 12, 2009, 01:57 PM

thanks NineBerry, but however, what i don't understand is the difference variation of apes like gorillas & orangutans and other animals like lions and cheetahs. not sure whether this is still in the question of evolution, though. Any explianation??
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Re: questions about evolution
Reply #9 - October 12, 2009, 02:00 PM

The variations among species is because they all evolved to fill different environmental niches. Or as NineBerry put it - they evolved different ways to make a living.

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Re: questions about evolution
Reply #10 - October 13, 2009, 03:09 AM

Nice analogy NineBerry

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Re: questions about evolution
Reply #11 - October 14, 2009, 01:55 PM

Quote from: Cheetah on October 12, 2009, 02:00 PM
The variations among species is because they all evolved to fill different environmental niches. Or as NineBerry put it - they evolved different ways to make a living.

thanks guys, should i had a question...
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Re: questions about evolution
Reply #12 - October 16, 2009, 06:14 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-nLJI2BZIM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KjJ234XPC4

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Re: questions about evolution
Reply #13 - October 17, 2009, 03:43 PM

Thanks for the video, atheist.pk.
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